Donald Trump recently offered an opinion on comedian Bill Cosby, who currently stands accused of raping, drugging or sexual assaulting over twenty women. In doing so the outspoken real estate mogul suggested Cosby was guilty.
“I think he’s probably guilty,” he told WTTG Fox 5 on Monday. “I think his defense has been horrible because he keeps going– nothing, I’m not going to talk. When a person doesn’t talk, that usually doesn’t mean good things.”
Trump also pointed toward Cosby’s silence as a possible indication of guilt, suggesting that the comedian previously been quick to speak out on important issues in the past.
“[Cosby] was always preaching about do this, do that, follow me, and a lot of African American people listen to him,” Trump continued. “And a lot of them didn’t like it because they were always being preached to by Bill Cosby. And now this comes out, and he decides not to talk.”
Trump, perhaps best known for starring on various incarnations of NBC’s business-centered reality show “Celebrity Apprentice,” visited with the Washington D.C. based Fox affiliate while he was in town to speak at the Economic Club.
“I think if he’s innocent, he’s done one of the worst jobs I’ve ever seen of proving that he is innocent,” he added.
In the wake of these mounting claims, re-runs of “The Cosby Show” have been pulled from the airwaves and several of his upcoming tour dates have been canceled. NBC killed his comedy project and Netflix pulled a stand-up special meant to premiere on Thanksgiving.
Cosby had mostly stayed quiet while the accusations mounted, but he finally broke his silence in a recent New York Post interview. There the comedian said he expected “the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism” by approaching the story with a “neutral mind.”
On Monday, however, Cosby’s lawyer John P. Schmitt issued a statement criticizing Stacy Brown, the freelance reporter who had conducted the interview. The statement said Brown had “failed to adhere to the most basic standards of his profession.”